


Coffee and Paint

by Bates



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Psychology, Teacher Castiel, Teacher Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bates/pseuds/Bates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is tired. His days are filled with teaching psychology, working on his most recent study and drinking coffee. In a way, Dean is too. Dean, art teacher at a local high school, is tired of being practically alone ever since Lisa and he split up and took up co-parenting. </p><p>With the winter break coming around for all their students, Dean and Castiel find themselves with more free time on their hands than they're used to. It's a night spend at a restaurant with Ben that Dean realizes that even after all these years, he can be brave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee and Paint

 

Know that there are things you just cannot love away. You cannot love away cancer.

You cannot love away depression. You cannot love away cells turning against other cells,

regardless of the amount of overflowing love that starts at your toes

and ends to the point in time when the universe is born. 

 (...)

Love, however, is a hammock.

Sways you back and forth, lifts you a few feet off the ground. Lulls you to sleep.

Makes you forget about things sometimes. Love is a railing at

the side of a staircase. Something to hold onto

when your feet is ready to take the steps." 

 

 

 

 

**[THINGS LOVE CANNOT DO // NIKKA URSULA](http://cardiamachina.co.vu/post/133846926543/know-that-there-are-things-you-just-cannot-love) **

 

* * *

 

Castiel felt worn, as if someone had put him on a string and kept tugging and tugging. His classes of the day hadn't even been that much rowdier than usual. His first years psychology students were always a bit elated when six pm drew closer and they'd finally be released from the torment that a four to six social psychology class had to be.  He didn't blame them - their statistics teacher always wore them out.

He so vividly remembered being in his first year of studying, now twelve years ago. He'd been that nerd in the middle block of the auditorium that always took notes and never skipped a class. Exam periods were stressful, but not quite as much as he'd expected them to be. With an average of 16/20, he'd been quite lucky. Castiel could see that same person reflected in some of the students that sat in his auditorium, that filled the seats. Even though there were a lot of students there, he knew some of them, because they always sat in the same spot, because they answered when he asked a question, because they behaved and didn't talk.

Thank god that they hadn't come up to him with too many questions before they'd left and allowed him to get to his apartment. Maybe it was pathetic, being in your early thirties and living alone, without a partner, kids or a proper house to call your own, but he liked his set up. It was close to the auditorium he taught his classes about ninety-five percent of the time, close to all the coffee shops and the rent wasn't that bad. Especially not because he shared the apartment with a high school art teacher.

They'd settled into the arrangement when Castiel had finished his bachelor and they were still doing it. Or at least, doing it again. Dean had moved out for a while to live together with Lisa. After a year, he'd come back asked if he could come back. Castiel thought that Dean still mourned the fact that their relationship hadn't worked out, even if he'd gotten a beautiful baby boy out of it. That was six weeks ago now.

Since those first few days, both of them had more money on their hands so they had upgraded to a loft instead of a tiny apartment with barely enough room for two people, but it was essentially the same. Dean would come home between six and seven with paint stained hands and chalk on his pants. He'd bring Cas a new cup of coffee and always offer the same thing ' _if you need someone to read something through for you, just yell_ '.

 

With his cup of coffee and reheated dinner of the previous day, he sat down at his computer. Castiel had started working on the final stages of his article weeks ago, but he seemed to be stuck. The words just wouldn't come. God knew he tried. His thoughts kept diverging from the page and he always started something else. Started preparing the next class he had to teach or would start answering some of his emails. 

There was always something to distract him and that was a problem, a  _big_ one. He couldn't be annoyed with it the weeks that Dean had Ben, because he'd just go to pick Ben up from daycare on his way back from the university and take care of him while he procrastinated. Dean was usually thankful that he didn't have to go pick him up and could just come home immediately, where it was warm and dinner was usually already started.

Today, unfortunately, was the end one of Ben's weeks with Lisa, so he couldn't. He couldn't even prepare another class because he'd taught his last class until February. Normally, Lisa would come drop Ben off around seven pm, because that was when they were sure that Dean was home. She

 

* * *

 

 

 ~~THE RISE OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN CHILDREN: A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS ON LATER LIFE~~ _revise your title Cas. Maybe increase._

Castiel Novak, PhD Child and Adolescent pscyhology

University Of Kansas

2015

 

 

_Abstract_

~~_Finally get started on the abstract Castiel it's not that hard._ ~~

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, after a long day of teaching, Dean couldn’t handle seeing another student anytime soon. You could say whatever you want about high school students, but the way that they seemed to have almost no interest in whatever he teaching he was something that was more than annoying. He felt almost sorry for his own teachers back in the day. When he himself had been in school, he had been that annoying student in the back that was always late, almost never showed up in class, didn’t pay attention to a word the teacher said and well, managed to get decent grades one way or another.

On a more positive note, it was Friday. He was about to wrap up his last class of the day and also his last class until January, when school picked up again.  The day had been long and harder than expected, with students that had to finish last minute assignments.

“You have fifty minutes to finish your assignments,” he said after most of his students had taken their usual places in the art classroom. “If you had finished the portraits during the previous lesson, you can get started on the assignment that I mailed you yesterday, if you don't don't worry about it. You'll have the entirety of Christmas break to work on them. Get started y’all.” He smiled at the different approaches that his students had had to the assignment. Maybe it was living with Cas that had changed things for him, that had made him more interested in the psychological background of his students and how different they really where. 

“Hey there, Travis, easy on the stylus,” he said while making his usual round. "Don't break the glass on your tablet. What’s your problem? Ah, I see. Hold on, use a different brush for that, you’ll get a much smoother result. May I?” The student nodded  and passed him the stylus. “See? It works much better than the other brush, at least in my experience. Try to play around with the different brushes a little it more.” It wasn't the first time that he'd given Travis this exact advice, but he didn't quite seem to grasp it. "Don't forget to save."

“Thanks teach,” the boy muttered, before taking back the computer. Dean himself enjoyed drawing, enjoyed painting even, but he would never be the best in any of the other art forms. He knew the basics, knew how he could help his students if they asked for help with them, but otherwise, he didn’t enjoy doing them.

 

He watched in silence, doodling in his sketchpad as his students worked. Even though he had started his computer, he wasn’t typing, he didn’t even pay attention to it. Only when he got an occupational email from a student that send him the link to the artwork that they had made on their laptops, did he look up.

“Teach?” A pale looking girl looked up at him from the back of the class. “We’ve had an incident over here.” Blood dripped from her fingers where the knife had made a deep cut through three finger tips.

“Zoey, will you please bring Mary to the nurse’s office for that cut please,” he said, after supplying them with three paper towels to apply pressure to the wounds, “when she’s bandaged up you can both come back, since I see you’ve both started the next assignment.”

 

For the duration of the lesson, all he did was draw and help the occupational student. Being an art teacher gave you a certain freedom. There rarely was anything to grade and if it was something it was artwork. Most of the pieces that he got to see, he could grade relatively quickly. Because of that, he didn’t even mind it when he had stuff to do for school during the weekends.

This weekend though, he was expected at his brother’s house tomorrow to meet up with Sam, his wife, and their baby daughter Ruby. It was something that Dean didn’t always look forward too, because he knew what they would ask him. Ever since he and Lisa had divorced, they had asked to see Ben, asked him to take him with when he came by for dinner. No matter how much he tried to explain them that Ben was with Lisa every other week and even if, he was too young to be lugged around even more. Ben was with him now, sure, but that didn't mean that Dean felt comfortable with him in the back of the car when he was driving alone.

 

Dean sat down in the almost abandoned teacher’s lounge. There were very few teachers that stayed later on Fridays, everybody had somebody to go back to. Ever since he'd moved back into Cas's, he came home to a practically empty house and even emptier bedroom. There were memories of the times that he had spent with the Lisa when their relationship had just started out everywhere.

That was why he preferred to stay in a little longer, drink coffee that he didn’t have to pay and watch the other teachers as they panicked over papers to grade and not having enough time to teach everything. He especially liked listening to the little group of religion teachers talking about how to talk ethics in classes and all that stuff.

He felt sort of guilty for leaving Castiel alone for longer than he really ought to, but the guy would survive. After all, for all Dean knew he was glued to his computer screen again attempting to work on an article. Dean almost wished that he could help Cas a bit more than he knew he was doing. Cas had helped him a lot these past weeks, as Dean came to terms with his relationship ending.

He didn't mourn in the way that he perhaps should. Both Lisa and him and realized a while ago that while they worked as best friends, they didn't work as lovers. It just wasn't what either of them wanted or felt for the other. Perhaps in the beginning there had been a spark of something, but it hadn't lasted. Dean had felt it soon after she got pregnant, but had clung on. Abandoning someone who's pregnant felt wrong to him. Eventually, it had been Lisa who told him that it wasn't working anymore. " _We both know I'm not who you want_ ," had been her exact words that night. He couldn't say that she was lying, she hadn't been who had been on his mind. Not in a little bit. " _It's okay, Dean. It is. We weren't really in love with each other anyway."_

**LISA (05.45 pm)**

_I dropped Ben off with Cas. Sorry if I'm early but_

_I don't trust the snow. Don't want to get caught up_

_in a snowstorm on the way back._

 

**DEAN (05.46 pm)**

_Okay, I'll get going in a minute. It's probably_

_for the best, wouldn't want you to get_

_stranded either._

 

**LISA (05.54 pm)**

_Made a move yet?_

 

**DEAN (06.10 pm)**

_Not yet._

 

His fingers lingered on the keys. He was being pathetic, he knew that. His relationship with Cas had been more than just friendship for a really long time, at least to him. The flutter he felt in his chest whenever Cas was talking to Ben or taking care of him couldn't be described as anything else than that. It was foolish and idiotic, could possibly destroy everything that they had build together.

After so many years, they knew each other better than they knew themselves. Castiel sometimes knew better when Dean needed a hug than Dean himself and visa versa. It was weird, having someone he knew that intimately. 

 

* * *

 

 

Lisa's prediction of snow was right. Castiel sat by the window with Ben asleep on his chest, pacifier half out of his mouth. He hoped that Dean would be back at the loft soon. He knew that Dean hadn't taken the Impala - even he didn't feel like it was safe for the road when there was a chance of bad weather - out that morning, but he still didn't completely trust him on the road. It wasn't that he drove unsafely he just worried.

Always worried easily when it came to the ones he cherished, whether it was his family, his students or Dean. Ben had brought another person that he could worry about, to take care of and truth be told, he far from minded. Ben was a welcome distraction and an amazing kid. He didn't even cry that much and looked quite a bit like Dean. 

"Hi," he heard an all too familiar voice say from the hallway. "Lisa told me that she dropped Ben off."

"Yeah, he's right here," Cas said, carefully getting up. Ben opened his eyes grumpily as he was lifted into Dean's arms but just melted against him. Castiel guessed that he recognized his father's scent by now. It wasn't surprising that he did because children did have a quite developed sense of smell and Dean did always wear the same aftershave. It was one of the things that Cas had missed when Dean was gone.

"Hi there Ben. Did you get any progress in?"

"Not really." He sighed. "I just need to find a way to start, something to get me in the mood to write. If I can find that, I'll be able to write again." Castiel knew that he could write it. He had written articles before, hell, he'd written a Master's thesis before. If he could do that, he could do a stupid article.

"How about we eat out? Have you eaten yet? Ben should be fine where I have in mind." He turned back to Cas, a slight smile on his face. "If you're cool with it of course, we could stay in, but I have an idea to get your inspiration flowing."

"Yeah, sure, let me just get my things together and clean up a bit.."

 

Dean took Cas to the most cliche restaurant he could have picked out. It was all done up for Christmas; a tree in the far corner, garlands and lights along the walls and red and green runners across the table. For a solid moment, Castiel just stared. It was long enough for Dean to think that he'd made a big mistake, that Cas would just walk straight out of the room.

"You hate it."

"It's different," Cas admitted, "it's, nice." He kind of fell over the words. "I just don't see how this could get me to write."

"You'll see. You'll see." He couldn't help but smile at the confused expression in Cas's eyes. "Come on, let's go sit down. I used to come here as a kid, with my parents? Haven't been in ages, they're all too busy but I thought I could take the little one here." Ben was sleepin in the stroller, so he really wouldn't remember it, but it wasn't for Ben that he wanted to come here. It was because of Cas, because Cas and he were sort of a family now, raising Ben together. "Do you think he'll grow up seeing you as a father?" It was something that he'd wondered about ever since they'd come back to the loft.

"Maybe," Castiel said, pensive as he studied the menu. Dean didn't even have to look at it anymore to know what he was getting, he knew it by heart. "Psychological speaking, he'll maybe see me as a parent, same way that he'll see a future partner of Lisa's as a parent. Considering our...arrangement, for a lack of a better word, I'd like to think that he'd think of me of more of an uncle, truth be told."

Jo came to them to take their order, just asking Dean if he wanted the same thing as usual, to which he nodded. Castiel seconded his usual order, even though he was sure that he didn't know what that usual was. "So more like he'll see Sammy?"

"Indeed. He's only spending half of his weeks with me in the house and as it is I'm away teaching a lot, so most likely." Dean couldn't help but think how he'd like it if perhaps, Ben would see him as a father. WIth all that schooling, Cas would make a great dad, he really would. "Is there a reason you ask?"

"Not really, I was curious. I mean, he'll be with you a lot and see you a lot. We're not exactly the most distant of friends either, so I just assumed that maybe he could. I don't know." He fell silent, nodding to Jo as she brough them their drinks and told them that their orders would be coming right up. "I don't know man."

"Do you think that he could see us as a couple?" Dean felt his cheeks heat up, but just nodded. "Theoretically, he could." Cas didn't seem to fazed by his question. "We do behave a bit more...affectionate than most friends do and since you were planning on raising him gender neutral and open minded, it could be that he's open to things like queer relationships. Perhaps in the people that raise him." They got a couple of weird looks at that. "Does it bother you?"

He fell silent for a bit, as if he was thinking. Dean just wanted to push it wordward a little bit, to push off the inevitable. "No." He'd actually like it. "Not really. I wouldn't mind. Would you?"

"I wouldn't be opposed to it."

 

Their food brought silence to their conversation, but also gave his mind some time to think. He'd actually done it, taken the leap and given Cas some inklings that he'd be into something like this, that he wanted to stretch their relationship further than how they saw it at that moment in time. Just getting that out in the open was a huge relief.

"Dean?" Castiel asked after they'd left the restaurant. He was pushing the stroller, which had started slipping in the snow. During their visit to the restaurant, it had started to snow again, enough for it to collect on the frozen concrete and not melt when it hit clothing. Ben seemed to love how the snow fell on the plastic rain cover and slipped off, he kept smiling at them. It made Dean smile too. "You didn't take me to the restaurant to help me with my article at all, did you?"

"Not really," he admitted, "it was the plan. To ask you to look around and see which chances on mental illness some of those kids hads, but I kinda forgot when we were talking."

"Why did you? Why there?"

"Because," Dean sighed, taking a deep breath. "Because we are a family now, even if it is a family of three. This is what I used to do with my family when we were little and still had time. It's once a year now, because Sammy has so much work and mom and dad are busy as well." He sighed, hiding his hands in his coat. "Maybe because I'm sick of being on my own. Even with Liss- you know that I never quite felt like I was in a relationship with her the way that I should. I've been back for six weeks now and I miss being a family. I'm back to going for dinnners at my brothers house alone." He was sick of so much more. Dean was sick of how he had pretended not to be into Cas for years now, hated how he felt about his best friend if he could damn well not answer to those feelings. "You're awesome man. You're smart and clever, a professor even and still we weren't quite a family, were we?"

Castiel nodded, or at least, Dean thought he did. His eyes were glued on the turning of the stroller wheels. "I suppose we weren't, no."

"With Ben, it just feels like we're a family and this is what I do with family." 

"Okay. Okay." Cas put one hand on Dean's shoulder,  almost asking for his attention. "Family means a lot to you." He just nodded, eyes still fixed everywhere but Cas's face. "Dean, how would you feel if I would kiss you right now?"

His entire body felt like it froze up for just a moment. Cas must have noticed it, but he just waited patiently, waited for his answer. "I'd be very relieved." Cas's lips were as soft as he had imagined them. With Cas so close, he could smell the soft smell of his aftershave, the reminders of the restaurant, coffee. Cas's nose was cold against his as he pulled away again.

"Good?"

"Good." Cas's smile was wide as he took one of the handles of the stroller again, the other taking Dean's hand in his. He squeezed it gently, looking at him to make sure Dean was still okay with it. Dean just leaned in to the touch, leaning against Cas's shoulder. "Very good."

 

Dean hadn't slept as peacefully as the night after that first kiss. He dreamt about it, Cas's soft lips and warm body. In his dreams, it was snowing again but Ben was older, he was maybe seven or eight and playing outside with Cas, playing in the snow and making a snowman, throwing snowballs around until Dean too got hit and joined it. It was that morning that he woke up to the sound of typing.

It was that morning that he woke up and found Castiel sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop and a frown, an empty coffee mug next to him. He took the coffee mug away, filled it again and gave it to Ca, before pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

"I told you you could do it."

 

* * *

 

 

THE RISE OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN CHILDREN: A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS ON CHILDHOOD AND LATER LIFE

Castiel Novak, PhD Child and Adolescent pscyhology

University Of Kansas

2015

 

 

_Abstract_

While the effects of mental illnesses have been documented for years upon years, the effects of mental illnesses during a child's forming years are a subject that many researchers do not touch. This while a rise in mental health issues in children has been documented over the past years. Through self descriptions and surveys in a population of 500 adolescents and adults with mental health issues starting in childhood, we searched for an answer to the effects on their life at this moment in time. Questions asking about their mental health in childhood, adolescence and adulthood as well as questions of their experience of the effect their mental issues had on both their life as a child and that as an adolescent/adult. Questionaires showed us that up to thirty percent of the population that describe their issues as a child as 'highly unpleasant' still have major issues to this day. There was a significant change in the people who received help (25%) in childhood versus the people that didn't.

 _Keywords:_ mental illness, children

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [The results and research used for Castiel's article is completely fictional.]


End file.
